4.29 사이구 Plus 20: The Ricochet from LA

Armed volunteers guard a Korean American-owned market on the third day of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Taken May 1, 1992, by Los Angeles Times photographer Hyungwon Kang, whose photos of the four day episode became well known.

The Los Angeles race riots – which started on April 29, 1992, after the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of black man, and lasted for four days – marked an important turning point in the history of the Korean immigrant community in the city and throughout the U.S.

Black residents in the South Central neighborhood where the police beating occurred took out their anger over the verdict on businesses owned by Korean immigrants who were more recent residents of the area.

With the 20th anniversary of the riots being marked by the U.S. media, the effect on the Korean immigrant community hasn’t been overlooked, though it has featured less prominently in some accounts.

Advertisement

“The events of April 29, 1992, have been referred to as a riot, a rebellion, an uprising, a civil unrest,” writes Eugene Yi in a compelling oral history for KoreAm magazine. “For many Koreans, it’s always been 4.29, following the cultural shorthand for the dates of historic tragedies. Yet over the past 20 years, the primary narrative of 4.29 has rarely included Korean American perspectives beyond stereotyped notions of victims or vigilantes.”

Mr. Yi’s article is gripping reading. After LA police abandoned the neighborhood to rioters, Radio Korea, a local radio station became the communications relay as business owners, many of them armed, defended their shops until National Guard troops arrived on May 1.

On May 2, Korean-Americans led a march of 40,000 people calling for peace and restoration of order to South Central LA.

Strikingly, the role of Koreans in Los Angeles – and the U.S. more broadly – has grown significantly over the last 20 years. Edward Chang, a professor at the University of California Riverside who wrote a book about the impact of the LA riot on Korean Americans, notes that the Korean American community was too insular and lacked political clout before then.

“Koreans’ business successes — their role as part of the broad Asian American ‘model minority’ — fueled resentment toward them,” Mr. Chang said, in a column for the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. “They were often confused with Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans in a three-tiered system: whites on top, Latinos and blacks at the bottom, Asians in between.”

The event – known as sa-i-gu 사이구 in Korean, a translation of the numbers 4, 2 and 9 – became a transformational moment. “For many within the Korean American community, their identity was born, or reborn, on April 29, 1992,” Mr. Chang said.

Today, the number of Korean Americans who live in Los Angeles has more than doubled since 1992 to about 700,000, the largest group of ethnic Koreans anywhere beyond the Korean peninsula and the Chinese provinces bordering the North. Korean Americans have been elected to city and state offices around the U.S. and been appointed to prominent roles in the federal government.

The attention to the 4.29 anniversary in the Korean American community ricocheted back to South Korea media in recent days.

Joong Ang Ilbo, one of the largest daily newspapers, wrote an editorial that said the experience holds lessons for South Korea as it integrates a growing number of immigrants.

“Thousands of non-native Koreans now live among us because of interracial marriages, jobs or for education purposes, yet Korea’s understanding and tolerance of other ethnic groups remain far below the global standard,” the editorial said.

It cited a survey by the South Korean government that found only 36% of South Koreans held a positive view on the “changes that make our society more diverse in terms of race, religion and culture.”

“Our evolution toward a multiethnic society is inevitable,” the editorial also said. “We must remake our laws in various fields to support a society that accepts differences. We also should welcome foreign talent to raise our international competitiveness. We feel proud of the success stories of ethnic Koreans overseas even though they are no longer Korean citizens. We should encourage foreign residents to be successful members of our society.”

Reuters

Above, a file photo of a Los Angeles police officer deployed for a shooting incident as a Korean American business is on fire on April 30, 1992, the second day of the LA race riots. Below, the same street (and what looks like the same phone signs) today. The tree got big. And the burned-out building was replaced.